A lot of people turned up to the Potters Leisure Resort expecting a Ronnie O'Sullivan v John Higgins final, but I had a funny feeling that wasn't going to be the case.

It didn't surprise me too much that Shaun Murphy beat Higgins in Saturday's semi-final. Having scraped through the qualification period as 'the best of the rest', he was up for nothing and played really well in a deserved victory.

O'Sullivan: looked good on Saturday

John struggled towards the end of the match and that's hard to explain. He went through the whole of the Premier League group stage without losing and I suppose he was due to have a bad night. He just picked the wrong night to do it!

John had an off-night at the worst possible time and he was more than a little bit disappointed afterwards because he's never won the Premier League before.

But Shaun was always capable of beating John. After a miserable campaign, in which he lost three matches, he was almost due to play well here.

Shaun attacked the game and must see Sunday's final as a chance to go and lift the trophy.

But that will be extremely difficult against O'Sullivan who, in contrast to Higgins, looked very good after a lacklustre qualifying campaign.

Ronnie seems to move up a gear when he gets to this stage. He has won every Premier League, but he has also inflicted some huge defeats on his opponents in the play-offs.

I saw Ronnie up early at breakfast on Sunday morning and he does look good. Would you believe he has decided to go and run a half marathon on the morning of the final?

That might not be everybody's idea of ideal preparation for an important snooker final, but I suppose that shows how driven and focused he is (and also how fit he is). Ronnie has always had his demons and maybe this is his way of taking his mind off things?

Inexperienced

On Saturday, Ronnie took surged into a 4-0 lead against an inexperienced Judd Trump. The youngster started to get his game together by winning the fifth frame but ended up losing 5-1 and will probably walk away disappointed.

When you play Ronnie, sometimes you get chances but you don't get a lot of them. Trump didn't handle his chances particularly well.

I'm a big fan of Trump and from the start I said he might be the one guy who could beat Ronnie - but I do think he was too attacking on Saturday.

At 3-0 down he took on a very ambitious black and smashed the reds all over the table; that's not the kind of shot you play when you're looking to get a foothold in a game. Ronnie ended up winning that frame in a very short space of time and the match was all over.

Trump went for all-out attack, but against O'Sullivan you sometimes just need to stem the flow first. I think he tried to run before he could walk and he took too many risks too quickly.

He will learn from that. He's still a great young player with a great talent and if he learns from losses like that he'll be okay.

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Murphy certainly knows how good O'Sullivan is and he knows he has to be at the top of his game in Sunday night's final.

Murphy is a former world champion, he's an attacking player and he's very fluent around the table; there was no reason why he performed so badly in the qualification period.

I genuinely believe he has a chance of winning on Sunday. There's always a chance that Ronnie's Premier League run could come to and end - and from the way he was playing in the qualification matches it seemed it could be this year.

I felt Murphy could upset the form book against Higgins and given the nature of the way he got through, he's on a hiding to nothing and the pressure is off him a little bit.

Everyone starts again from scratch at this stage and what has gone before can be put behind you.

I wouldn't rule out a new winner being crowned on Sunday night.

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